Thursday, December 18, 2008

Have been bouncing this idea around for a while, now is the time to make it happen. The employment situation is challenging to say the least. Below is an outline of thoughts and ideas regarding the formation of the Michigan Job Club.

If you or someone you know may be interested... post a reply to this post or find my contact information on Twitter here.

Your IDEAS and comments are appreciated.

To: YOUR NAME HERE

From: David Damore

Subject: Michigan Job Club - 5 people [or more]

Date: 12/15/2008

Creation of a job club in SE Michigan... Metro Detroit... or anywhere in the state. Michigan has the highest unemployment in the nation at 9.3% [tied with Rhode Island]. The employment situation looks to get worse in Michigan before it gets better.

Now is the time to take action. Building skills, knowledge and developing new talents. In doing so it is important to leverage these new skills to become, what Peter Drucker would call a knowledge worker. Knowledge is the way of the future. Those with it and using it will thrive as part of the US labor force. Flexibility is key and knowledge workers will be uniquely suited to benefit from opportunities as they arise.

Mission: Create a small organization of...

unemployed

recent graduates

reentering the job force

Career transition [Boomer, new career/direction]

Etc...

To: Leverage knowledge creation and social communication to advance for oneself and for society.

How: Using social networks and technology to...

Communicate

Share technology

Support

Encourage

Inspire

Brainstorm

Etc...

When: Meet formally for a conference call once every 2 weeks. Day and time are open for discussion. Time that works for all members will be the time we do. Time could be from 5 am to 1 am or so. Members can meet anytime using any of technologies listed below.

The risk metric known as beta can be a useful investment criterion during these times of market volatility.

An issue with a beta of 1.5, for example, tends to move 50% more than the total market in the same direction. An issue with a beta of 0.5 tends to move 50% less. If a stock or stock fund moved exactly as the market moved, it would have a beta of 1.0. Thus, high beta is typical of a volatile stock, while a low beta is typical of a stock that moves less than the market as a whole. A stock with a negative beta moves in the direction opposite to that of the market. With a beta of -1.0, a stock has the same volatility as the market, but tends to rise when the market falls, and vice versa.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

"The company, which has 350 employees, has seen its sales increase 30 percent over the past year, Linkner said, but he hopes the cuts will fend off problems so the company can remain competitive."

Sales are increasing 30% and you have too much talent?

How did so many extra people get hired?

What new technology has increased firm productivity enough to cope with such rapid growth and make the current labor force redundant?

"Many of ePrize's clients -- from the automakers to financial services companies to retailers -- are seeing profits dwindle or disappear, leaving fewer dollars to invest in advertising."

The firms that hire ePrize are cutting spending?

How is the firm growing at 30% in the throws of a recession?

Fewer dollars for advertising and promotions?

"The laid-off workers received a severance package, though the company wouldn't disclose details. There are no plans for more layoffs, Linkner said."

Severance packages are good for the people let go. These are smart and talented folks.

No firm ever plans for more layoffs down the road. Cut once and cut deep. It seems that ePrize had a major RIF [Reduction in Force] last Summer.

Two rounds of job cuts in less than one year is a signal of concern

There are no easy answers

In the past several weeks there was elevated traffic for search terms such as "eprize layoff". The increase was so dramatic, it indicated that the word on the street was that something was happening. Sure enough, the Detroit News reported ePrize layoffs in today's online edition.

Michigan Economic Conditions

Michigan is facing some very turbulent economic conditions. In October the Michigan unemployment rate was reported as 9.3 percent, seasonally adjusted, tied with Rhode Island for worst in the nation. The automotive sector, which makes up a large segment of the Michigan economy is likely to continue deteriorating.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Currently there are 188 feeds in Google Reader. The ones listed below are very good to excellent resources.

Check them out for yourself. They may challenge your thinking. If they do, you will have to sharpen your analysis; in the process your position will either change or become better defended as you find better information.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Book Review: "The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success" by Marcus Buckingham

Are you serious about your success? Do you want to make an impact? Are you unsure how to maximize your talents?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions you would do well to buy "The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success" by Marcus Buckingham. This is a book like no other. There are essentially three components. These three components make this book into a highly engaging and effective package.

The Components are...

Book

DVD

Memo Pad

The first is the book itself. This is all high impact information. The included information is all meat. There are no filler words, sentences, paragraphs or chapters.

The second is the included DVD. This should play in most computers and standard DVD players. This is about 20 minutes in length and will engage different parts of your brain.

The third component is the "rememo" pad. This is what makes this book stand out. You have to take action if you want to succeed. Reading any one book without taking action is unlikely to help you attain a greater level of success.

This package will engage more of your brainpower than most other books. Each of the three components engages different parts of your mind. If you are committed to self improvement, you will find this package to be very valuable.

The combination of the DVD [audio and video] + the book [reading: visual thinking and processing] and the "rememo" pad [thinking, writing, analyzing] makes for a very powerful package. If you are serious about doing the small amount of self analysis and effort required from the book you should order/buy and implement the book with included tools ASAP!

This book is for people that want to perform better and create more satisfaction in what they do. If you are not willing to take these small steps, this is probably not the right book for you.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The screen shot to the left is from Chrome. In it you can see various folders on the Bookmarks bar. The one of interest is called "Peeps."

In this are Twitter users of interest to me. Some of them post a lot of content. For these folks it helps to be able to see their last 20 posts on one page. It is easy to navigate their tweets backwards from here.

Other people in this folder post infrequently and it would be easy to miss a tweet. They are in here to quickly navigate to their Twitter page.

The third type of person in this folder are what I would call, like 'em, not sure I want to follow them yet. A few people get in here so their tweets can be reviewed again. If it seems compelling on subsequent looks they may get a full fledged follow.

Three types of users in the "Peeps" folder

Heavy posters: More than 15-20 posts per day

Light posters: Less than 10 posts per day to about 1 a week or even 1 per month.

People to review: Some people are not follow ready when you first converse with them... Review them a few times a month.

Do not reply, do not respond to the email below. It was sent from supportcramptoninvestment@gmail.com Reputable firms have email addresses from their own domain, not gmail.com.

[Ed. Name removed below]

Dear XXXXX XXXXXX,Upon reviewing a resume, I would like to offer you a job position inyour area according with your skills and experience level.

Our system found you as a potential candidate for the following jobvacancy:

Widening the scope of activity, our company has to increase and renewthe staff of Processing Manager position in USA. Are you blessed witha new child yet unable to attend work? Are you a college student withodd class schedules impairing regular work time? Well you're inluck!!! We look for active, purposeful people and people, whose aim ismaterial well-being. Your income will completely depends only on Youand usually it makes up from 2000$ to 5000$ per month.. You will havea time for private life.

The duties of the Regional Agent shall include:

*Your task as a payment processing manager will consist intransferring payments from one of our clients to another. Due to thefact that our company works in securities market, we constantly buyand sell payments, so you will work with this money.

Obligatory requirements:

_ Honesty, responsibility and promptness in operations;_ United States resident;_ Computer with internet access and e-mail address;- Basic knowledge of Microsoft Word(optional);- E-mail account and ability to check your e-mail box at least twice a day;- Adults only accepted (we cannot hire underage people);- 1-3 hours free during the week (mainly in the evening / non-businesshours) for communication and 2-4 hours a week more for transferprocessing;-No criminal records;-Banking account(You can open a new one(zero-balanced) to work with the company;

Terms & Conditions:

-no office work;-no need in special financial skills;-no investments;-flexible Timetable: You choose work time yourself;-1-2 hours of occupation a day;-comission for each of the financial operation (8% of the sum and more).

Crampton Investments Electronic Company is being extended and we neednew partners. We are very interested in new workers, and we are alwaysglad to take responsible people on this work.

If you ready to apply, please reply. You will get all necessaryinformation regarding this position.

*After you will reply, we will give your the reference on ourofficial site with registration.

The people of Michigan are hurting. Rapidly increasing job loss is creating some very bad consequences. Michigan has relied on certain business sectors to heavily and [automotive, furniture, etc] for too long. It is time to diversify.

In doing so we need to create a skilled, talented and capable work force. Human Capital!

The goal is to create small teams of people all across the state that are connected and supporting one another. This is an idea in progress. It will be developed with the input from many different people [Google Docs]. No one person has the 'answer'.

As a small group and through team work we can create winning solutions that lead to talent creation. This talent can then be deployed in different industries and fields because it will be flexible. In being flexible it will have resources to further create value.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

This post was going to be about a third party app that pays you to allow it to post ads in your stream. That app seems to be getting some negative feedback from followers of users already.

Lets explore how Twitter might do ads and make money.What Twitter may do to monetize their network.

All active users choose categories. The number a user would have to choose from is unknown.

Lets say 3 categories of 20

Twitter would sell ads on these user 'interests'

Possible choices are below. These are some I might choose if available ;)

Running

Golf

Fishing

The advertisers that want to reach a receptive audience [me] would buy ads from Twitter to get in the stream of users who are interested in these categories.

Nike, New Balance or Zappos.com might buy ads to put tweets in your stream. Twitter would place these ads, mini billboards if you will, in the stream you follow. I am interested in running and if these firms have relevant messages I am willing to hear them out. There would be two links.

One would take you to the information or offer

The other would

Let your stream keep moving

Until you make a choice your stream stops flowing.This way Twitter can serve highly relevant ads to users of the service. It should be relatively easy for the user to do this simple task [make a choice and click on a link or maybe an icon [Sort of like star and trashcan now].

Twitter may offer a way to opt out as well by allowing a user to pay a monthly fee to not see these ad tweets. For example the stream for @guykawasaki must move at a very high velocity since he is following 28,918 streams at the moment [9:36PM EST 11/19/08]. A user like Guy might just pay the fee to opt out. If one choose not to pay a fee, maybe there would be a set number of ads you would see a day... maybe 1-6 per hour as a maximum if your stream moves fast.

Twitter can do this. How users react will be interesting. People hate change. A recent survey [non scientific] found that many users would pay a monthly fee to use Twitter. Twitter can monetize their platform with subscription fees and/or ads. Perhaps there would even be a blended model offered as well. Smaller fee but still getting some ads from time to time.

How would you feel if Twitter created such a system? What say you?

PS: [yes I realize some people follow 0 streams. For those folks maybe they can only post so many times before they get one of the tweet ads]

Monday, November 17, 2008

The first three are part of the information process. Input, thinking and planing, these are requirements before taking action to create desirable outcomes and results. Action is what and how you do what needs to be done.

Monday, October 27, 2008

One firm is taking it to heart that you attack you opponent when they are weak. You try to take their talent and/or drive up their costs during an acquisition.

RJ & Makay is recruiting Merrill Lynch employees to defect before the Bank of America take over is completed. They hope to take top talent or drive up the cost for Bank of America to retain these folks.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Costco has even gotten vendors to redesign product packages to fit more items on a pallet, the wooden platforms it uses to ship and display its goods. Putting cashews into square containers instead of round ones will decrease the number of pallets shipped by 24,000 this year, cutting the number of trucks by 600. By reshaping everything from laundry detergent buckets to milk jugs, Costco has needed 200,000 fewer pallets a year overall.

[Ed: Bold added]

Some quick math indicates that is [24000 / 600 =] 40 pallets per truck.How much fuel and a labor cost is saved from not making these 600 truck trips? Just thinking about it, you know the savings are significant. All that from redesigning the package for one item.

BrandWeek has an interesting article about brands that do well during turbulent economic conditions. It is clear that some brands or segments do better. More meals at home means firms that are ingredient or raw material [Home cooking] oriented should see sales growth. Firms in food service will see shrinking margins and declining revenue as the total [food service] pie becomes smaller.

Assumption: Consumers pull back on dining expenses in an uncertain economy

Likewise, Wal-Mart, which seemed to be losing brand power only a year ago, today is poised to reap the rewards of consumers who are looking to save some cash. In September, as same-store sales for Kohl's and Nordstrom fell 5.5% and 9.6%, respectively, Wal-Mart's rose 2.4%. Author and branding expert Rob Frankel thinks the retailer's gains will closely mirror the economy: "Wal-Mart is the brand that reminds people they are poor. Nobody shops at Wal-Mart because they want to; they shop there because they have to. The minute the economy recovers, Wal-Mart's sales will drop like a brick."

The snippet above [Ed. bold added] indicates that the writer believes Walmart is a brand for the poor and that people only shop there because they have to. Thirty years ago Walmart was a relatively small regional retailer. The US economy has grown tremendously in the last 30 years. People have continued to shop there during this time frame. Walmart had yearly revenue of $348 billion in 2007.

As people gain in affluence they increase spending at retailers that make them 'feel' like they are part of another demographic 'the Affluent'. Costco is an example of a firm that has done a tremendous job selling that feeling to Americans [some would suggest Starbucks as another, $4 coffee drinks].

Now that people are shopping Walmart more out of need, they are beginning to see what a tremendous value they present to consumers. Category best sellers at much lower prices than other retailers. When the economy picks up [in the next 12-18 months?] people will be hesitant to go back to their freewheeling spending. Walmart will retain most of these new shoppers. The more a shopper saves by shopping Walmart the more money that is left for other things.

Where these saved dollars may go...

Dining out

Debt reduction

College

Books

Internet

Computers

Travel

Questions:

What percent of new Walmart shoppers will defect when the broad economy recovers?

Are you cutting back on eating out?

Are you preparing more home meals?

How much do you budget, generally, for dining out, now vs. a year ago?

PS: This post was written before reading the comments on the site with the original story. There were ten comments at the time this was posted. Read them, you might find them insightful.

This would allow the large Twitter community to think of IDEAS to increase revenue and profits for Twitter. They would create a business plan [IDEA] for Twitter to execute. Judging would involve a highly distinguished panel of savvy business people [suggested members of the panel include... Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin...]

This plan could have a big pay off if...1. The plan is strategically sound and uncontrollable factors do not adversely affect the results2. The plan is executed with precision3. The plan successfully drives usage of Twitter in a way that increase revenue and profits and does not increase costs materially.

Using a contest like this is outside the box. It will draw diverse teams that will develop unique IDEAS for making Twitter more successful.

Please review this with your brain trust, evaluate the soundness of the IDEA and #MakeItHappen.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Twitter is an online communication service.Twitter is like nothing you have seen before. There are a few things Twitter is like...

Instant Messaging

Email

Blog

...but mashed together with the best aspects of each.

There are some powerful tools to help one harness the immense power and bring it to the individual. [There are more then this. These are the ones that are most ofen used by Admore]

These are best utilized by placing them in the bookmark / Links bar in your browser. In order to save space on the bookmarks bar I use a folder named "Twitter". Most of the secondary tool are kept there.

Tweet Stats Used to see what a user commonly tweets about. You can do this for yourself as well as for others provided that their updates are not "protected" [locked out of the public stream] In the word cloud, you can now click on the term and see all the conversations that are related. There is more interesting data there as well. Check it out for yourself.

Monitter & Tweet Grid These sites can track trends per key words the user chooses. Sports team work well on game day. Might be interesting to check stock ticker symbols as well. Never tried it, just thought of it.

Twitscoop A nice site to see what terms are trending per the number of updates users are posting.

Twitter Local Great way to find users near an area or zip code. Try a zip code and set the radius to 20 miles. Here is the one for my zip code, 48236. You will probably see my tweets in there somewhere. Look for Admore.

Twitterholic - The Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers. Would suggest adding just a few of these folks to get started. Their updates may overhwhelm your stream if you add to many and they update alot.

There are a few services that shorten links to a size that works well for tweets. Two that are used frequently are TinyURL [25 characters] and Is.Gd [currently shortens to 17 characters]. There are others and you can search them out on Google.

A few people that you may enjoy following. These folks are in a folder called Peeps. This keeps a direct link to their full page handy.

Zappos Tony the CEO of Zappos is very active on Twitter. He has written a guide for new users, "Beginner's Quick Start Guide and Tutorial to Using Twitter". Some of the features are currently disabled in Twitter [EG: Instant Messaging]. A great read for people who are thinking 'what is this Twitter, sounds dumb so far.' Read it at the link above.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Based on a suggestion yesterday from a student in my MBA class (MGT 551 Business Economics), the graph above shows the declining share of disposable personal income (data) spent on food (data), clothing (data), and shelter (housing and household operation) since 1929. From a high of almost 59% in 1933, the percent of disposable income spent on food, clothing and shelter today has continually fallen, and today (2007) is only 33%.

The problem I have with these types of stats is...

People have taken the savings and put them into other spending categories...

Such as Cable TV... Internet... Mobile phones... 401k...

People have less money left over at the end of the month...

Funds are all allocated...

There is not much fat to cut in personal budgets...

You may not agree, that is OK.Takeaway: When Food, Fuel and Shelter costs rise rapidly there is no way for the average family to easily adjust to the new realities.